Maya Script: A Civilization and Its Writing

A fascinating handbook revealing the secrets of the symbolic written characters of the ancient Maya people, which provides a vivid portrait of their gods, people, and everyday life.

Maya Script presents about 200 Maya glyphs (symbolic figures). Some are ideograms while others are phonetic signs. The glyphs express people, animals, things, and such abstract concepts as death. Each one opens a window onto fragments of everyday life, religious beliefs, or even emotions. The complexity of the Maya calendar, mathematical computations, and astronomy reveals a highly developed civilization. This book also features two–color drawings of the glyphs, illustrations from reliefs and Spanish codices, and examples of Maya sculpture and paintings. Concluding the book are a chapter on writing systems of the New World, a bibliography, and an index of glyphs. This informative book is a travelogue back in time for anyone intrigued by ancient civilizations.

Maria Longhena, a scholar of South and Central American pre–Columbian civilizations and history, is actively engaged in intensive research of Maya written sources. Her studies have been published in international scientific journals and she has been involved in numerous museum exhibitions in Europe, including "Inca–Peru: 3000 Years of History" and "In Search of the American Past."